Woodturning is a well known and readily accessible craft, practiced by many hobbyists and some professionals. For those turners that make bowls, hollow forms and vessels (as opposed to spindle work which always requires a tailstock), the desired shape being turned often results in the need for the gouge or chisel handle to pass through the space that is taken up by the unoccupied tailstock of the wood lathe. To remedy this situation, the tailstock is manually lifted from the bed of the lathe and placed on the floor or a nearby work bench. This can be awkward because the tailstock, especially on larger lathes, is heavy and hard to handle. Manually reinstalling the tailstock is even more problematic because the heavy and awkward tailstock must now be aligned with the lathe bed ways. The cumulative affect of all the manual tailstock removal and reinstallation is excess lathe wear, woodturner fatigue and opportunities for accidents.
Various lathes and lathe components have been patented over the years that have moveable components to increase the capacity and versatility of the lathe. None of them address the practical problem of effectively removing the unoccupied tailstock from the lathe so that the woodturner can freely access the work, nor has any solution been developed to allow the unoccupied tailstock to be quickly and easily brought back into position so that it might be used for other woodturning applications, such as spindle turning.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,319,645 teaches a mechanism whereby the entire lathe bed is rotated in a horizontal plane, the vertical axis of which is centered under the headstock. This design teaches a convenient means so that a jeweler might better access work using the lathe bed, but did not address unoccupied tailstock issues.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,547 is an adjustable tailstock for the tapering of work pieces, and provides a larger and more convenient means of exploiting its range of motion for increased accuracy and range of tapers that can be cut than conventional tailstocks, but its range of motion does not extend to getting out of the way when the tailstock itself if unoccupied.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,520,700 teaches a tailstock for supporting cylindrical work pieces in sub-micrometer precision coordinate measuring equipment that can rotate in a horizontal plane around a vertical axis so that work can be more easily loaded and unloaded in the measuring device. The mechanism also contains sophisticated adjustments for taking into consideration thermal expansion, which is not a factor in the coarser art of woodturning.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,5755,041 is a resiliently yieldable tailstock device which is adapted to clamp the workpiece with controlled thrust. Although this mechanism is novel, it again addresses only the work holding capacity of the tailstock.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,856 is for a very versatile lathe with a variety of moving and auxiliary components. One of the notable features of this lathe is that the entire lathe bed can be slid back and forth and rotated in an horizontal plane around a vertical axis. The tailstock is also fitted with a vertical axis so that it too can rotate in a horizontal plane to enable it to be realigned with the spindle once the bed is rotated. This design does not address the issue of getting an unoccupied tailstock out of the woodturners tool path, leaving manual removal and installation the only mechanism available.
The present invention seeks to overcome the deficiencies of the existing art and provide a safe, convenient means of removing the unoccupied tailstock from the turners tool handle path and provide an equally save and convenient means of returning it to its normal position when the turner has a need for it.